Letter to parents regarding Coronavirus

As Headteacher of Ysgol Bae Baglan I have the interests of all of our children at the heart of all decisions that we make. I continue to follow advice from Local, National and UK governments, and announcements by Public Health Wales. I have listened to all advisory bodies and although school closure remains a possibility for the future, all advice right now is to remain open. We have no confirmed cases.

Some parents have made the decision to keep their children at home because of concerns about family health conditions. In some cases, this is not in line with advice from Public Health Wales or government guidance, but I respect parents’ decisions. When parents’ decisions are in line with WG guidance then we will authorise absence, this includes when pupils have a new persistent cough or high temperature. Absences which do not follow government guidance are being recorded, coding and authorisation of these will be discussed with the Local Authority.

We have taken steps to reduce risk to pupils. We have stopped all school trips, sports fixtures and parents’ evenings. We have closed the school to public bookings out of school hours, we have cancelled school assemblies and stopped the use of our meeting rooms by outside agencies and governors. We have stopped the use of biometric readers and toilet areas are being continually checked and soap replenished. Teachers have spoken to pupils about hand washing and where possible this is being demonstrated in class. We will constantly review these measures and respond to any advice.

In preparation for any future school closure, we have been discussing the preparation of schoolwork as advised by Kirsty Williams the Minister for Education. We are working on ways of publishing this work and will give details in the near future.

We have had a large increase in email correspondence and telephone calls at school. In response, all correspondence will be through publishing regular letters home where I will try and answer as many questions as possible. These will appear on the school website, Twitter and Facebook.